Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Mass-steria -- Julian Run To Ground! Boycott Everything!!!!

Good doG.

I've only had time to check the headlines and peer momentarily at the ravings on show among Glenn's commentariat, but from what I can gather, Julian presented himself to Scotland Yard in London today, and at some point, he will stand before a magistrate who will decide whether he should be handed over to Sweden (depending mostly on whether the paperwork is in order, apparently) for disposition on sexual misconduct allegations that have been simmering off and on for months now.

OK.

Because there is some sort of "law" involved here, and something called "courts" are involved, along with a special employment category called "police", obviously Julian has been unfairly "arrested," on the demand of the evil American Central Government which runs everything. In the World. All the Time.

It was agreed that after breakfast, Julian would present himself to the police in London where he would be arrested and held until he appears in magistrate's court in Westminster. [UPDATE: Apparently Julian has duly appeared in "court," and has demanded that charges against him be provided in a language he understands, specifically English. And he denies everything. No disposition has been announced on my radio-machine.]

All very cut and dry.

And of course Rupert Murdoch's "The Australian" today publishes Julian's op-ed regarding his being The Messenger who Should Not Be Shot.

Of course, the ravers are convinced that this is all a CIA set-up. The only charges pending against Julian are the Swedish misconduct ones, and there are claims that one of the women who made claims against him is a CIA-associate.

Could be, who knows?

According to those who follow these matters, the course of events in Julian's case closely mirrors what happened to Scott Ritter when he forcefully and publicly disputed the Bush Administration's claim of "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq.

Suddenly, sex charges against Ritter were uncovered and put into the public square, ostensibly by an intrepid reporter, and the existence of these sex charges was sufficient for many people to suddenly denounce Ritter and dismiss his claims about the lies and deceptions of the Bush Regime.

This was bizarre on its face. But it was widely assumed at the time that the revelations of charges against Ritter was a ploy by some element of the Bush Regime to discredit Ritter, and that it worked.

Much the same is claimed with regard to the charges against Julian.

And it may be, I don't know.

The calls for Boycott!!! are running into an ideological barrier, though. The Boycotts now include Amazon, Mastercard, PayPal, and on and on, all high-profile private companies who are alleged to be "buckling" to American Government Pressure.

But they are private companies; whether or not they are actually "buckling" to the Evil Government, they are acting in their self-interest, which is what companies do, and their actions (whatever the motivation) are perfectly in keeping with their purposes.

The Boycotts are being called almost exclusively by the Libertarian cult fringe, and those who are calling them seem incapable of recognizing the irony of calling for boycotts against the very companies they would otherwise be celebrating if the companies were doing what they are doing on their own, without any government involvement, to an individual or organization that was on the Libertarian cult fringe's shit list.

Pointing out -- as I sometimes do -- that the Government they so despise (and Fear) is the captive of a cabal of private companies, and that the Government serves their interests not yours or mine is really pissing up a rope. These people believe the Government controls the private sector, not the other way around, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

The private sector no doubt would very much like to squash any effort by Julian to reveal confidential information about them. So far, that effort appears to be successful, as the BofA dump that Julian was teasing has not happened.

Whatever the case, it is something of a relief not to be too caught up in the Hyper-Drama of the Saga of Julian.

May head up to Santa Fe today to visit the Native American Museum. There's an exhibit by a deceased friend up there, and the cultural exhibits are outstanding. ==================================

2 comments:

Amazon is "new money" as far as the government is concerned. They have powerful enemies within the government, who would like to see most of their profits go to the telcos.

They don't rate much, at all. Obviously, as a wealthy company, they can buy their way in. However, even though it may seem like they've been around forever by now, to the ancient people who mostly run the system they are just a fad.

You have a point about the hierarchy of money/power based on longevity, and for all its financial bloat, Amazon is very new to the game and so does not have a secure position among The Powers That Be.

But I was actually surprised to learn they were hosting WikiLeaks, and the fact that they were doing so -- apparently without objection -- is yet another of those dogs that didn't bark.

I've suspected from the outset of the Controversy that WikiLeaks is at least partially operating as a highly visible aspect of a strong factional dispute among The Powers That Be -- the fused Government/Corporate sector.

Who is really doing what to whom here? And to what object?

I don't know. Nor do most of the rest of us.

Meanwhile, all the cyberwar going on strikes me as a Systems Test. On all sides, they're trying to find and patch vulnerabilities. It's been something of a mystery why nothing like this happened before now. The military and state department material and how it was acquired -- and what would be done with it -- was known months and months and months ago. And believe me, the Government does not sit on such things and do essentially nothing about them but put out tiresome press releases and denunciations. They act. They act to close the breach immediately. In the case of WikiLeaks, though, they did not do this.

Just so, a private company that faces such a breach does not sit idle. They take immediate action too.

But nothing serious was done about the WikiLeaks leaks until after the State Department release, and nothing really serious was done about it until Julian's announcement of what is apparently BofA internal memos coming next. Then -- but not until then -- all hell broke loose. Suddenly, it wasn't just the leaks that had to be stopped, it was WikiLeaks itself.

But at the same time WikiLeaks has not been stopped, just the release of the BofA stuff (if that's what it is.) Which I think was obviously the point of all the cyberwarriorism.

WikiLeaks is useful, in other words, for probably more than one internal faction in the Government/Corporatocracy. And of course it is endlessly fascinating to a segment of the public. Specifically that which spends a lot of time online... ;-)

No matter what happens with Julian in Sweden -- and I suspect it will amount to no more than a mild spanking ("You've been a very bad boy; don't ever do that again") -- WikiLeaks will go on happily so long as it is useful to the factions.